Michael @LegacyKillaHD
This is just horrifying.
Ubisoft CONFIRMS they will delete your account & purchased games if you go inactive for too long!!!
Ubisoft… WTF?! Another example of why I’m becoming more & more concerned with the death of physical games.
https://twitter.com/LegacyKillaHD/status/1682653876418224129
Ubisoft Support @UbisoftSupport
Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging into your account within the 30 days (since receiving the email pictured) and selecting the Cancel Account Closure link contained in the email. We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account so if you have any difficulties logging in then please create a support case with us. >> ubisoft.com/help
https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/1682046437834784768
They’re making the case for pirating games even better.
What fucking morons
I saw a great quote,
“It’s not pirating if buying it isn’t owning it”.
It’s definitely still pirating. I think the quote uses the term “stealing”.
Also you can steal services. For example imagine hacking the payment panel on an automated carwash so you don’t have to pay.
But this isn’t about services like Game Pass - these were bought games.
It is service, which I agree is really shitty and shouldn’t be a thing. You’re buying access to a game, not a copy of the game.
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Piracy can’t be stealing if paying for it isn’t owning.
Piracy can’t be stealing when the supreme court of the united states says it isn’t stealing.
I like that quote a little better
And neither is it piracy.
piracy: robbery or other violent actions outside of the jurisdiction of any state.
Luckily, it can be understood as rebels/feighters for freedom too.
Don’t feel bad about pirating AAA titles. See, the creatives and people that actually put work into the game have already been paid - usually at least. There are cases like Bethesda, who stole work from their composer - and so you’re not taking any profits from the people that matter.
Any money you’d pay to license a game would mostly just go to shareholders and greedy execs.
Yeah so their studio gets downsized, closed or merged. The big companies don’t care about the people. Tech lost 10k dev jobs last year, plenty of talent out there desperate.
And with the advent of AI tools and such much more work will be expected from fewer people. It’s a cutthroat industry that chews up passionate workers and spits them out when it’s done abusing them. The big companies definitely deserve to crash, and if a little bit of piracy can help induce that then I’m even more for it.
Yes but then again I’d be pirating Ubisoft games. Ain’t got time for that bloated crap.
“We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account”
So why do this? Corporate greed.
I don’t even see how greed motivates this. I can’t think of anyone that would go back to Ubisoft games after being locked out. Even assuming they were the scummiest of publishers, how does this give them anything other than bad press and sworn-off customers?
They’re hoping this will actually entice people to come back. Following that “get people in the door first and then worry about what you’ll sell them” business model, it’s the same logical reason that Costco has super cheap hot dogs that they lose money on, and Epic Games has free games every week. It’s just to get you to into a position where you can be marketed to.
That’s the more “amicable” business strategy though. The more sinister possibility is, well, a constantly running app (the Ubisoft launcher is configured to start on boot by default, and even if you turn that off it spawns a background process as soon as you click on it at least till you reboot), always online with full user permissions and filesystem access is a very powerful thing, you’ve gotten yourself a pretty capable Trojan virus that people are willingly installing and granting whatever permissions you need! Plenty of Windows users are also in the habit of using the admin user with system access for literally everything, which makes it even easier for them to exploit.
They can’t even show me the store on a language I want to see it in. They just arbitrarily decide I should be looking at it in french. Despite having my profile specify English. Despite having my entire launcher on English. French is the only language I’m allowed to see the store in.
And they wonder why i never buy shit from their store…
Getting people to come inside and have a look is a good strategy if they can make sense of what you’re selling and under which conditions. Entering a shop with shiny pictures and everything explained in Arabic means I won’t be spending money there as I can’t figure out under which conditions I’m buying anything.
I get this all the time in Switzerland, with just about every online portal / service.
It’s pot-luck if I actually can get something in ENGLISH that the UI is set to.
SAMSUNG - Always in German Microsoft - Always in German EA - Always in French UBI - Always in French Netflix - Getting better, but most of the older content only has German subs / localisation.
Geolocalisation needs to fuck off, just as these corporate tosspots need to.
It’s not like you, the end user, know which language you prefer.
I can get behind them doing an estimated guess based on location, but I’d rather have it as a pop up when I enter the site.
" Hey, we see you’re coming from Switzerland so we’ve set the language to German. Click continue to proceed in the German or click one or the other languages to switch!
Thanks for visiting".
I honestly don’t understand why they make it so hard. And every time it looks like they fixed it. A few months after somebody decided it’s working a little too well and reverts it back. Because screw the minorities ( multi lingual countries ) where it doesn’t work.
Ironically I’ve heard that in Brussels they get everything in Flemish by default, and in flanders we get everything in French. It’s like they’re deliberately getting it wrong.
My uplay launcher closes when i tell it to and I don’t remember changing that setting, which makes it close easier than common programs like steam, epic and discord. I remember gog also not truly closing but I may have done that intentionally.
The triple admin request on update is fucking stupid though, and idk how a company as big as ubisoft can have that be the experience.
It did entice me to actually log into my Ubisoft account because I couldn’t actually remember if I had any games from them or even why I had an account with them in the first place. I didn’t purchase anything through their store front, so I don’t particularly care. Unless they’re wiping your Steam games, I don’t really see the point, like who buys games off the Ubisoft storefront anyways? Hopefully they at least have some process for reinstating accounts if somebody still has an email receipt at least.
Huh. I’ve got some games on Ubisofts store… Well, maybe not anymore.
You’ll have to explain to me why I shouldn’t just steal any future Ubisoft titles if they steal all mine first…
Yeah, was just thinking I should log in sometime. If it’s gone, I got it free off epic anyway, so no big loss, but also a better reason to sail them digital season.
If you got it from Epic then you probably still have it with Epic. You’ll just no longer have any achievements or playtime stats from Ubisoft.
At least, I hope.
As if I give a fuck about anything on Ubisoft’s platform. Honestly it’s an annoyance that makes me never want to pay for their games again. I bought Assassins Creed Origins on Steam and somehow I still have to fucking use Ubisoft’s launcher. Fuck them. Great game, but fuck them anyway.
Yeah that’s how I felt about EA after buying Jedi Fallen Order on Steam. The bastards require not only the information from your PC at all times, but the information Steam has about you also.
Fair enough I suppose. It’s been so long since I played whatever it is, I can’t even remember what game it even is. All I know is the Ubisoft launcher is taking up space.
I will say, it could be someone hit a wrong button. My account isn’t available because I’ve got 2fa apparently, but it’s still there. I doubt even a big game company would be so stupid as to automatically delete a paying customer’s account.
I’d you already paid for them, it’s not stealing.
It’s like they want people to pirate their games.
But I don’t want to pirate same old reskins of bloated games
Me neither, but a whole lot of other people do.
Guess I’m no longer buying games by Ubisoft. I spend hundreds in their store and they’re going to delete my account if I’m inactive to long? You can’t be making this shit up.
Not defending it but it has to be a pretty long period, i have played their game or used their launcher in a few years and have not gotten any email about my account getting deleted.
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Yet…
Not defending it but it has to be a pretty long period
Fair enough, but why have any length of time at all? What purpose does it serve the prune old accounts?
Account information can’t be taking up that much space on a hard disk.
I’ve not been buying Ubisoft games since the sexual harassment scandal back in 2020, and this only reaffirms my choice not to buy anything from them. It’s not just scummy, it’s pointlessly scummy.
Admittedly, physical copies of games don’t resolve this issue either: legally speaking when you own a physical disk, all you own is the disk itself- not the contents. The only way to actually fix this issue is better consumer protection laws.
Yep. We need a law that says “a person owns any item or service they buy for a one time fee. No ‘licensing’ them out of ownership” or legalese for the same thing. Only loophole should be if it’s outright advertised as a subscription service.
Then another law that guarantees access to schematics and repair parts for reasonable fees. No loopholes. Schematics or die, that’s how I roll.
Schematics or die
Surely if we get the schematics, we would need a die of some kind as well, right?
Jokes aside, what do you expect is the alternative to licenses? You don’t “legally own it” because it’s an endlessly duplicatable infinitely durable item. There’s literally no way to enforce ownership the same way with actual physical objects outside of keeping track of who owns what (and unsurprisingly, that’s what a license is).
You’re attacking the wrong thing here, licenses aren’t the problem. It’s the revocation of them that is.
I’m not completely against licensing, especially software. I’m against companies licensing buyers away from being able to use what they bought.
So if a license states “You own this as long as you don’t make and distribute copies to other users. Also some lingo allowing for reasonable backup copies.” 100% good in my opinion.
But a license that states “You paid for it but we can take it away for no good reason, such as a few months of inactivity.” BS IMO.
And then they wonder why they can’t compete with Steam and end up crawling back to Gabe for every game.
What happened to owning something you’ve paid for forever?
These companies need to realize if they keep fucking over their paying customer, it’ll be more convenient for people to just pirate their product. At least FitGirl won’t knock on my door and demand me to delete his repack off my hard disk just because I haven’t visited his site in a while
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Yar har fiddly dee. Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free.
As “wrong” as stealing is, I find it more wrong that companies can keep fucking us over like this without reprimand. Triple A games are becoming more and more difficult to justify the new $70 price tag.
I haven’t bought a triple A game brand new since like 2014 or something. I wait until they have some sort of sale on them first. Literally didn’t buy Cyberpunk 2077 until very recently when they finally knocked it down to $30 a few weeks ago. It actually shocked me to walk by the games isle recently and see that triple A titles including yearly sports games are like $80 now. Crazy IMO. I might go back to reading books.
$30 is still too much. I have my alarm set to $10.
Btw, thre are lots of free eBooks too. I’m currently in the Jenkinsverse.
80 dollars!? I thought it just went to 70!
FitGirl only demands you to prostrate before her and to be her sex slave.
Y’ARRR MATEYS!
I just had a horrible experience with Assassins game purchased through Steam. I had bought the game few years back. Played some and stopped. And deleted my Ubisoft account. This week I downloaded the game again hoping to play it. I created a new Ubisoft account but the game wouldn’t launch.
Hours spent with the support got me nowhere. In summary, their response is that since the original Ubisoft account was linked to the purchase, they cannot now link the game to the new account.
I provided the Steam proof of purchase but that didn’t help.
Steam support didn’t help either.
I can’t play a game I purchased and own.
This should be illegal!
But that’s the neat part! You don’t actually own your games. You own the right to play a copy of the game, but if they don’t wanna provide a working copy, then you can’t play anymore. It’s all in the terms and agreements we click “I agree” on
Arr me matey, thar be many a way to acquire that treasure! Ignore the blockades - hoist the colors!
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One more company to add to my “Pirate Only” list
Don’t even bother playing. Their games have been shit for years.
Anno 1800 is pretty great.
Fuck Ubisoft
Well guess I won’t be “renting” any games from them then. If I buy something it means I own it, in perpetuity. In fact I’m fairly certain Europe has laws against this, though Ubisoft will probably just have to pay a “fine” that is more a gentle slap on the wrist. We need to stop fining these companies, it does not stop them from breaking the law repeatedly. Stop arresting pirates, start arresting CEO’s.
If the EU slaps you with a fine, it’s usually not a slap on the wrist but something that seriously stings.
Except for the big guys. Didn’t Facebook have a portion on the side, for the expected fines? They still madr more money. If fines are just part of the business calculation, they don’t sting enough.
€1.2B fine and the threat of 4% of their turnover as fine if they don’t comply with the EU regulations. The EU does not fuck around and is not completely bought like the FTC.
Ha! I deleted my own account before they could, jokes on you Ubi!! Jokes aside, fuck ubisoft. I primarily buy games from GOG. Recommended everyone to do the same 🐖
I’m mostly asking out of curiosity, but also maybe for anyone here that’d like to know. But if you buy Ubisoft games from GOG, like Prince of Persia, they won’t need the shitty Ubisoft launcher, right?
No sub-launchers on GOG. I think that would violate their no DRM stance.
Didn’t know that, thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything from there but I will if it means no sub-launchers.
That’s rad. 🤔
That is correct!
It depends on the game.
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Heroic Launcher on Linux supports GOG, from what ive heard.
I know GOG has a launcher, but I haven’t seen it in a long time. The links on my desktop just go straight to the game executables.
I really can’t imagine that this complies with EU law.
Which makes it even more strange considering Ubisoft is based in the EU.
Something like this might have to be done to comply to GDPR. I’m not sure about the details, but I do know a company cannot keep personal information for longer than they need. At some point, I guess that would probably translate to removing old and unused accounts.
Doubtful. There is no basis for Ubisoft to claim the account is no longer needed just because you haven’t played a game in some arbitrary period of time. Especially if they allow explicit account deletion by the user.
Sure, but that isn’t how it works under GDPR. You don’t need to prove the information should be deleted, you need to prove the information must be kept. To give an example, the company I work for deals with long-lived contracts (often 20 years or more), and once they end we are legally allowed to keep the information for about 5 more years. After that we need to remove it.
Are you allowed to unilaterally stop providing the service you 've been paid too?
GDPR is not the only law In EU nor does it automatically supercede any and all other obligations.
I really don’t see why you say this, sadly. Our laws do not protect us against account closures.
